Matched function of the neuropil processing optic flow in flies and crabs: the lobula plate mediates optomotor responses in Neohelice granulata

YAIR BARNATAN; DANIEL TOMSIC; ALEJANDRO CÁMERA; JULIETA SZTARKER

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. SERIES B: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.

ROYAL SOC

Año: 2022 vol. 289 p. 1 - 10

0962-8452

When an animal rotates (whether it is an arthropod, a fish, a bird, or a human) a drift of the visual panorama occurs over its retina, termed optic flow. The image is stabilized by compensatory behaviors (driven by the movement of the eyes, head or the whole body depending on the animal) collectively termed optomotor responses. The dipteran lobula plate has been consistently linked with optic flow processing and the control of optomotor responses. Crabs have a neuropil similarly located and interconnected in the optic lobes, therefore referred to as a lobula plate too. Here we show that the crabs? lobula plate is required for normal optomotor responses since the response was lost or severely impaired in animals whose lobula plate had been lesioned. The effect was behavior-specific, since avoidance responses to approaching visual stimuli were not affected. Crabs require simpler optic flow processing than flies (because they move slower and in 2D instead of 3D), consequently their lobula plates are relatively smaller. Nonetheless, they perform the same essential role in the visual control of behavior. Our findings add a fundamental piece to the current debate on the evolutionary relationship between the lobula plates of insects and crustaceans.